FEMALE RUDDY DUCK. 
159 
lata he says is seldom observed in Pennsylvania, and the 
northern states ; the Muscicapa pusilla^ and the Muscicapa Ca- 
nadensis^ he considered rare birds with us ; notwithstanding’, 
in the month of May, 1815, all of these were seen in our gar- 
dens ; and the Editor noted the last mentioned as among the 
most numerous of the passenger birds of that season. 
The subject of this chapter affords a case in point. The 
year subsequent to the death of our author, this duck began 
to make its appearance in our waters. In October, 1814, the 
Editor procured a female, which had been killed from a flock, 
consisting of five, at Windmill Island, opposite to Philadel- 
phia. In October, 1818, he shot three individuals, two females 
and a male ; and in April last another male, all of which, ex- 
cept one, were young birds. He has also, at various times, 
since 1814, seen several other male specimens of this species, 
not one of which was an adult. In effect, the only old males 
which he has ever seen are that in Peale’s Museum, and an- 
other in the Cabinet of the Academy of Natural Sciences of 
Philadelphia. 
The duck figured in the plate as the female was a young 
male, as the records of the Museum show; the great differ- 
ence between its colours and markings, and those of the full- 
plumaged male, having induced the author to conclude it was 
a female, although he was perfectly familiar with the fact, that 
the young males of several species of this genus so nearly re- 
semble the other sex, it requires a very accurate eye, aided 
by much experience, to distinguish them by their external 
characters. This is precisely the case with the present spe- 
cies ; the yearlings of both sexes are alike ; and it is not un- 
til the succeeding spring that those characters appear in the 
males which enable one to indicate them, independent of 
dissection. 
‘‘ The opinion of our author that this species is not the Ja- 
maica shoveller of Latham, the Editor cannot subscribe to, it 
appearing to him that the specimen from which Latham took 
his description, was a young male of the duck now before us. 
